CVE-2026-99078

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Mellanox network driver (mlx5e). When processing high-speed network traffic using XDP (eXpress Data Path) sockets under low-memory conditions, a failure during receive queue replenishment can cause previously freed memory buffers to be released again through stale pointers. This double-free condition leads to memory corruption, which can cause a kernel crash and result in a denial of service.

This vulnerability is rated as Moderate because exploitation requires specific Mellanox network hardware and an active AF_XDP zero-copy socket deployment, which is not enabled by default in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In addition, reaching the vulnerable path requires inducing extreme memory pressure during queue refill operations, making exploitation difficult and confining the primary blast radius to a host denial of service. Deployments that do not utilize Mellanox network adapters or do not deploy AF_XDP sockets are unaffected.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.